Council continues bill protest

The White River Central Labor Council continued its pledge against the right-to-work bill Tuesday evening at the Fountain Square Mall Ballroom.

“This is a power grab by the Republican party,” said Jerry Sutherlin, treasurer of WRCLC. The council is part of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations.

“They are not going to let it slip by unless we make them, unless we call them out to what this is,” Sutherlin said. “It’s an attack on our democratic principles.”

States with right-to-work stop unions from collecting dues from workers’ paychecks at private companies. Recently, Democrats wanted to add amendments to the legislation so Indiana citizens could directly vote on it. Opponents of the bill say workers are “free loading” if unions provide services and benefits for all employees. Indiana workers have been gathering at the statehouse to protest against the state administration’s non-public hearings on the bill.

IU Maurer School of Law Professor Kenneth Dau-Schmidt lead the discussion with panelists and audience members. Five local panelists spoke against the bill, including Monroe County Commissioner Mark Stoops  and Carvan Thomas, the president of the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers. The speakers argued that the right-to-work bill is attempting to raise business profits and will not help lower unemployment rates.

Thomas read a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. and said the inflation in the 1960s and 1970s is what led to the current economic state.

“It was an economy created by all these traders that were trading for nothing,” he said. “Every one of them walked away with millions of dollars in parachutes.”

 Thomas said it is important for workers to gain control in the economy, which is why the right-to-work bill should not be passed.

Currently, fewer than the half of the states have right-to-work laws.

“Tonight is not just about unions versus the Republican party,” he said. “I want to focus on what environment we will have in this state and what it is going to be like 10 years from now.”

 The referendum is a race to the bottom for the county and the state, and that Republicans are “trying to constitionalize bigotry,” Stoops said.

Labor Representative for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Tom Szymanski said the Democrats should be able to voice their opinion at the statehouse.

“(The bill) isn’t in the interest for the 99 percent of us,” he said.